Teed Off

 

I am perfectly happy when Randy is "teed off." I am not a golfer, but I do like golf courses. When we're on vacation and the weather is right, we usually include one or two stops at golf courses. Who can argue with pretty scenery and a quiet place to read a book?

We didn't make it out of Kansas on our October 13-20 trip to Colorado before stopping at the first golf course. (Yes, I am late posting this.)

 

 Randy has always wanted to golf at Buffalo Dunes south of Garden City. So he did. 

 

Buffalo Dunes - a 72-par golf course - opened in 1976. A course-wide renovation plan has been put into action by current Superintendent Clay Payne, set to be completed in 2026 to celebrate the course's 50th anniversary. 

And - bonus! - their wildflowers were in full bloom and just beautiful (at that time).

 

I didn't need my book for awhile.

This beautiful array of colorful wildflowers was on the Back 9. They attract butterflies ...

... And people who appreciate nature's beauty. 

The beautifully-manicured course seems an anomaly in Western Kansas. I'm sure it benefited from better-than-average rainfall this summer and fall. 

BRIDGES - Montrose, Colorado

 The other golf outing was midway through our vacation in Montrose, Colorado. 

The par-71 Bridges course is a Nicklaus-designed course that features a number of golf cart and walking bridges, as well as native plantings, natural arroyos, rock features and waterfalls winding through 400 acres in the heart of historic Montrose. 

 

The 360-degree views of the surrounding peaks make for a memorable and scenic round of golf. Multiple tees vary the length of the course from 5,380 to 7,207 yards. Randy says he plays the "old man" tees.

 

The website says: 

The Nicklaus design team has incorporated a degree of difficulty into the course, but has also made it an enjoyable layout for the average golfer. The Bridges offers a true western club lifestyle to its residents and the Montrose community. The championship golf course is the heart of The Bridges golf community, complemented by a luxurious 23,500 square foot clubhouse, with 11,000 square feet of patio off our award-winning Remington’s Restaurant. 

We can't speak for the restaurant, but the course was beautiful. 

The Bridges at Black Canyon is approximately 65 miles south of Grand Junction and 65 miles north of Telluride on Colorado’s western slope. The property is surrounded by many natural wonders – to the east is one of the Nation’s newest National Parks – The Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. To the north is the Grand Mesa – the World’s largest flattop mountain. The views of the San Juan Mountain range from The Bridges at Black Canyon stretches the length of the southern horizon. The gently ascending Uncompahgre Plateau extends west of Montrose clear to the Utah border.

 

We would recommend both golf courses ... if you're into that kind of thing!

Them Thar Hills

 

"There's gold in them thar hills."

According to folklore, in 1849, from the steps of the Lumpkin County Courthouse, a Dahlonega, Georgia mint assayer, Dr. M.F. Stephenson, yelled to the townspeople, "There's gold in them thar hills." He wanted to keep people looking for gold in Georgia, rather than leaving for California.

We found some "gold" in the Flint Hills of Kansas during a recent golfing excursion. But the gold was in the form of wildflowers - not minerals. 

At a senior golf tournament Randy played in this summer, some of his golfing companions talked about playing the Wabaunsee Pines Golf Course. We had a day between tennis and volleyball matches while in Topeka, so we - like the gold prospectors - went west.

Of course, we weren't going as far west as California, but just to Wabaunsee County. 

 

Wabaunsee Pines is a nine-hole public golf course featuring limestone berms and native grasses of the Flint Hills. It's been called “The Gem of the Flint Hills” and we now know why.

The course was constructed and maintained with volunteer labor and has irrigated greens, tees, and fairways.Wabaunsee Pines Golf Association, Inc. was incorporated in 1993. In 2014, a group of patrons joined together and created the “Double Eagle Club” which funds the course's only employee. Before that time, it was maintained by all volunteer labor.

The beauty of the Kansas Flint Hills is just natural - no grooming required. 

 This time of year, the fall wildflowers provided a beautiful backdrop to a nice course.

 

The course is adjacent to Lake Wabaunsee.

Kansas may have a reputation for being flat. But the Flint Hills are just one exception to that rule.

My golfer would recommend it. 

On the way back to Topeka, we had lunch at the Sommerset Cafe in the tiny town of Dover. 

Photo by Taylor Hunt from Facebook photos

 I didn't take any photos (believe it or not.) But we would recommend it, too. The cafe is housed in a 19th-century clapboard building and serves homestyle cafe fare and classic pies. Yes, we had the pie. Randy had banana creme and I had Dutch apple. Yum! We would definitely make a return visit, if the opportunity arises.

 

 

It Was a "Grand" Time!

It was a GRAND time! We spent several days in Topeka with the girls while their parents had a quick getaway. 

This time, there were two lists of instructions: One was for our granddaughters' schedules and activities. The other one was for Summer, the dog. Thankfully, Randy handled most of the dog duties. Other than a brief time when we lost the red collar that's supposed to keep Summer in the yard, we had minimal mishaps. Summer was a good girl and stayed anyway. Whew! That's on Randy. 

But ... oh yeah ... the broken plate is on me. 

Still, Kinley and Brooke got to all their activities and were fed. Summer also survived the week with the novices left in charge.

Before the parents departed, we got to see Brooke's volleyball team in action, led by Coach Jill. This is the third graders' first year playing volleyball. This is also Jill's debut season as coach. They don't keep score. But, the Attack won, I'm sure. It had to be due to the superb coaching, right?

Many of the girls are already serving overhand. Of course, they don't serve from the regulation line and they get two chances to get it over. But, we were still impressed.

Having a team cheer is vitally important to success.

The girls had an early release day on Wednesday, so we went bowling. 

Grandma lost. Of course, they had bumpers and I didn't. But, as I told them, there was a reason I took bowling in college pass-fail. Back in the olden days, we had to take a lifetime sport to graduate. I chose bowling. And I sure didn't want my lack of skill at the bowling alley to affect my GPA. I was bad. And I didn't improve much, even with some input from the instructor.

Then, on Friday, we took Kinley to her tennis lesson. We're always amazed in her improvement. You'll have to take my word for it because the video won't upload, for some reason. And she's one of the younger ones in the class and I sure wasn't going to make her pose for a Grandma photo when she was surrounded by her older friends. That would be a Grandma fail!

It wasn't all sports. Brooke was working on her X6 multiplication facts. And she passed and has moved on to the X7s.

She also got her pet rock decorated and turned in early - just one less thing for Mom and Dad to help with when they got home!

We got to see some of their artwork come home. They did not get their artistic talent from me.

We were proud to clean out book bags and find positive notes from their teachers, too. Brooke was honored for collaboration, going above and beyond and respectfulness during the Friday assembly. I was ready to go and cheer, but I was informed that parents (or grandparents) did not go to these assemblies. And Kinley was recognized for including others and welcoming others to her group. While I'm also a firm believer in working hard on school subjects, those character traits get an A+ from Grandma, too!

While the girls were in school, Randy golfed at three different courses around Topeka. And I read my book.

The first day, we were at Forbes Field.

The second day, we went to Lake Shawnee. Randy survived golfing with three KU fans.

The third day brought chillier weather. Though he'd planned to golf 18 holes at Western Hills, we quit after 9 when it began sprinkling and the wind was blowing.

He thought it was easy to give the "Play Better" advice. It's not as easy to do.

Randy and I needed to be back in Stafford so I could take photos at the ribbon-cutting for renovations and donor recognition for the Nora Larabee Memorial Library during the Oktoberfest celebration. So Uncle Brent and Aunt Susan were the pinch hitters.

I asked Jill yesterday whether we all got good grades from the girls for our role as stand-in parents for the week. We did - Bonus!

While at Oktoberfest on Saturday, we were told (yet again) that farmers aren't supposed to retire. However, if we hadn't retired, we would have been home planting wheat at this time and we wouldn't have gotten to spend the week with the girls. 

Hmmm ... sounds like a good decision to me.

The Unloved Things

 

My friend, Pam, posted a poem by Nicolette Sowder last week. It really spoke to me and my philosophy about finding beauty in everyday life:

May we raise children who love the unloved things

By Nicolette Sowder

 

May we raise children

who love the unloved things - 

the dandelion, the worms

and spiderlings.

Children who sense

the rose needs the thorn

and run into rain-swept days

the same way

they turn towards sun.

 

And when they're grown 

and someone has to speak

for those who have no voice,

may they draw upon that wilder bond,

those days of

tending tender things.  

 

She mentioned her husband giving a combine ride to their four grandchildren. That's a familiar scene for us, too - at least, until this year. Here's what she had to say:

 

They worried over every butterfly, bug and sunflower that the combine might have to devour to get the precious kernels of drought-stricken wheat this year. I missed out on this as there clearly was no room for one more body in that crowded cab. But, I can imagine their commands to “wait, steer clear, turn around” in order to save what they see as tiny, beautiful and valued.

 

We were at the Stafford golf course during the holiday weekend. It was the perfect day. I had my favorite golfer with me. It was not too hot and no one else on the course. It was verdant green against a cloud-splattered bright blue sky after some rains. I had a great book to read.

 

I recommend this book: "Drowning" by T.J. Newman. I also liked her first book, "Falling." They are excellent if you like thrillers!

I remembered that poem as we drove from tee to tee on the golf course. The groundskeeper at the course chooses to go around the purple poppy mallows that bloom wild and so abundantly this time of year in the course's rough.

 

Some might see them as weeds. He sees the little purplish-pink blooms and doesn't want to chomp them through the mower. I don't know what the golf course board thinks about his mowing decisions. But I can't help but think that he has just a little bit of childlike wonder in seeing those "weeds" as flowers.

Just like the poem reminds us, perhaps the world could be a better place if we tended "the tender things" - including the people who inhabit it.

I should have looked at this while I was still on the course and tried again to get the sunflower in focus. But I definitely noticed the beauty of the sunflowers lining the ditches along the eastern border of the golf course.

The Weeknd: Sky, Land & Water

 

They may not be the Justin Bieber of the bird world, but we'll take the "B-level" performers in our little part of the world, too. (Using Justin Bieber as a "star" probably shows how clueless I really am, which is no surprise at all. Actually, my curiosity won and I Googled biggest male singer of 2022. It's The Weeknd - just in case you wanted to know.)

"The Weeknd" visitors weren't the celebrity-level whooping cranes. They do travel through our area in the fall and spring. Their scarcity makes them bigger news and subjects for any paparazzi. 

But the Great Egrets at Quivira National Wildlife Refuge still warranted some camera clicks and watching through the binoculars. We had taken a sightseeing jaunt to the Big Pasture (Rattlesnake Creek pasture), and we took the long way home. I'll call it "sightseeing" because we aren't the ones responsible for day-to-day care of the cattle anymore.

But we still looked the cows and calves over - the ones that weren't hiding in the plum thickets anyway - and we checked the solar battery to make sure it was still charging.

And we stopped for the obligatory snapshot of the Rattlesnake Creek on the bridge. The water level is down some because we've had a dry winter and spring thus far. But there's more in the stream than there was back in 2012 during another drought. 

Our "long way home" took us on a drive through the Quivira National Wildlife Refuge. On the Little Salt Marsh, we saw a number of Great Egrets.  We also saw their smaller "cousins" - what we typically call cattle egrets, too. We see cattle egrets all the time. 

In the map from Cornell University below, the purple is where the Great Egrets live year-round. The yellow shows the migration route for those that migrate. The peach is breeding and the blue is non-breeding. 

 

Map from All About Birds: Resident to medium-distance migrant. Most Great Egrets move south for winter, traveling as far as the West Indies or southern Central America. They migrate by day in small flocks. During mild years, Great Egrets may stay as far north as Massachusetts. Individuals from the southern U.S. may not migrate at all. In late summer and fall, Great Egrets range widely over the continent. Map data are provided by NatureServe in collaboration with Robert Ridgely, James Zook, The Nature Conservancy - Migratory Bird Program, Conservation International - CABS, World Wildlife Fund - US, and Environment Canada - WILDSPACE.

The Great Egrets migrate through our area, including the wetlands of the refuge.

According to All About Birds, they are slightly smaller and more svelte than a Great Blue Heron, but they are still large birds with impressive wingspans. Great Blue Herons usually don't hang around when humans are in the area. The Great Egrets didn't seem to mind much.

From All About Birds website

They hunt in classic heron fashion, standing immobile or wading through wetlands to capture fish with a jab of their yellow bill. Great Egrets were hunted nearly to extinction for their plumes in the late19th century, sparking conservation movements and some of the first laws to protect birds. They are no longer endangered. 

The Great Egret eats mainly small fish but also eats amphibians, reptiles, birds, small mammals and invertebrates such as crayfish, prawns, isopods, dragonflies and damselflies, whirligig beetles, giant water bugs, and grasshoppers. They hunt in belly-deep or shallower water in marine, brackish, and freshwater wetlands, alone or in groups. It wades as it searches for prey, or simply stands still to wait for prey to approach.

The Great Egrets aren't the only avian visitors to our area. The Baltimore orioles have returned to our backyard another year.

I've not been too successful yet in capturing them on camera, but I did get one, who was preoccupied by the grape jelly Randy provides. 

Besides the birds, we encountered wildlife of another variety later in the evening on our trip to the Stafford County Country Club. (As I've said before, it sounds fancier than it is.) But the recent rains have helped green up the scenery. 

 And the clouds were pretty spectacular, too. 

 Randy even gave me credit for his better-than-usual putting game.  

The clouds cleared out for the final viewing of the weekend. We had perfect sky conditions for a little star gazing ... or, more accurately, the lunar eclipse. There are a lot of wonderful images of the lunar eclipse on the internet. These aren't among them. (I haven't figured out how to take moon pictures.)

Whether I got good photos or not, we still enjoyed a beautiful night under the stars. (Well, we made it for the first half of the eclipse. We didn't watch as it reemerged.)